We’re delighted to announce that we’ll be working with the fantastic Friends of the Porter Valley as our charity partners for 2026-27.
Friends of the Porter Valley work to conserve, protect and restore the ecology, landscape and cultural heritage of the Porter and Mayfield Valleys, for the enjoyment of all and the benefit of future generations. These beautiful green spaces connect the brewery to our pub, The Rising Sun, so the parks, woodlands and wildlife the Friends of the Porter Valley help to look after are especially meaningful to our team.
As always, we’ve planned in an exclusive cask only fundraising beer to be released in the summer – look out for more news on this coming soon. As well as the beer, we will also be working with the Friends of the Porter Valley on other projects and fundraising campaigns throughout the year, starting with the famous Duck Race, which we’ve donated a number of prizes towards! Taking part in Endcliffe Park on Easter Monday (Monday 6th April) it’s a fantastic place for us to get started with our support, we hope to see lots of you there! You can get your duck in advance here if you want to join in the fun.
Long time followers of the brewery may recall that we have worked with FoPV twice in the past, including raising funds for the restoration of Shepherd’s Wheel in 2009, and Forge Dam in 2013. We felt that as part of our 30th anniversary celebrations, working again with a charity we have supported previously and building on that relationship would be a really nice way to feed into celebrating our history and the community that surrounds us. This year, the funds we raise will go towards the repair of and upgrades to the Forge Dam Playground, which is in need of a little bit of TLC. We hope to contribute towards a replacement for a broken seesaw, and a new climbing frame, as the current one is reaching the end of its life. This small playground is hugely popular and very heavily used, including by many of our Rising Sun regulars’ families, so it’s in need of continual investment.
Head here to visit the Friends of the Porter Valley website, to find out more about the work they do and how you can support them, including how to make a donation. You can also find them on Facebook here.
Thank you so much, as always, for your continued support of not just our employee owned business but our wider community too – it really does mean the world to us!
Introducing Amass! A convivial new addition to our Funk Dungeon range of mixed fermentation beers, with a focus on community and good cheer.
The first release of Amass is a mixed fermentation heritage saison, aged in English red wine barrels and “wet hopped” during conditioning with freshly picked UK Cascade, grown in our designer James’ Yorkshire garden in the peaceful suburbs of Boston Spa. Light and refreshing with a zesty aroma and notes of oak and marmalade, rounded off in a delicately funky finish. We’ve put this in the yellow region of our special International Goat Unit (IGU) scale, reflecting that the “farmyard” character of this particular funky fellow is apparent without being too overwhelming – a relatively accessible beer with a nicely tart pH of 3.4.
The base beer is constructed using the preferred blend of malt and hops that has come to be known as the house style of the Funk Dungeon, using a hefty dose of heritage malt Plumage Archer alongside our house grain (Maris Otter), wheat, rye and a hint of crystal malt, with a sizeable addition of English grown hops. A variation of this base beer has formed the core of many of the Funk Dungeon releases over the years.
The difference with Amass is that we’re looking to use ingredients found within and collected by our local community to finish these releases, establishing an ethos of making best use of abundance and celebrating by sharing the rewards reaped from our collective endeavour!
Our designer James started growing his Cascade hops in West Leeds after getting involved with a local brewery’s hop-growing scheme in 2019. Despite moving across the city in the spring of 2023 when the hops had started to regrow after their winter dormancy, he managed to keep them alive with the help of his neighbour who was a professional gardener. In sunny Boston Spa, the hops have gone from strength to strength, doubling their yield each year since – culminating in the 2025 haul making its way into our very first Amass release. Commenting on the process, James said “It’s a really pleasurable experience growing hops – they’re fairly easy to manage and the speed at which they grow means you get to see progress throughout the summer – with numerous green leaves and bines shooting skywards joined later by the hop cones that produce that pleasant aroma. As long as they’re watered, managed and get access to whatever sunlight we are afforded – they make a great addition to a garden of any size. I encourage anyone with an interest in beer to look into growing hops themselves in whatever space they have available.”
Whilst this year’s release of Amass – Green Hop Saison features hops from a single garden, for future releases we hope to introduce a “forage to funk” scheme, in keeping with our pub, The Rising Sun, who operate a “field to fork” initiative whereby local growers can swap their surplus homegrown produce for beer tokens! We plan to offer drop off dates in September at our taproom (COMING SOON!) once the growing season is coming to an end. There’ll be opportunity to pick the hops ready for production with your fellow growers (we’ll provide the refreshments) and an event for the release of the beer with a free drink for hop growers – quality control is very important! The names of all contributors will be added to the bottle label too. So, if you already have hops with a home in your garden, or if you’re feeling inspired by James’ story above, keep your eyes peeled for details of how to get involved in time for this year’s harvest.
Amass is available now in 750ml bottles, both to trade customers and via our own shop (you can pick one up online, or pop into the shop to see us!). Just 5 kegs exist, which are already all spoken for! A couple are saved for some super special secret projects (more on that soon!) but look out for it on keg at the Draughtsman Alehouse, The Selden Arms in Worthing 10-12 April, and at our tap takeover at the King’s Arms in London on April 16th.
Join us in celebrating the finest of English terroir!
Have you been to our fabulous Fulwood pub, The Rising Sun, recently? It goes without saying that our beautiful S10 retreat is home to a huge selection of Abbeydale beer – but it is also host to a new chapter in pub dining.
We would love to introduce you to Joe Grayson, who we’ve newly welcome aboard the good ship Team Abbeydale. Joe comes with a lofty reputation and a plethora of fresh ideas. Most recently seen as part of the duo at the helm of Frerot in Cambridge Street Collective, Joe is perhaps best known for Juke and Loe – a pair of restaurants that saw some of the most exciting and inspired cooking in Sheffield. Nationally renowned (including being lauded by none other than Jay Raynor!), and known and loved around his home town already, we know how lucky we are to have the mind behind those menus in our local pub kitchen.
Joe’s culinary confidence sings from his dishes, blending well-loved classics with the ingenuity and flair for erudite flavours that Joe has come to be known for. Our Rising Sun dining room has never been more tantalising and we can’t wait to share more developments from pass to plate, shout about the fabulous independent suppliers we’re working with, and relish the spoils of the hard work going into elevating our offering.
Joe’s very own menu has just launched – it’s innovative, exciting and constantly evolving, changing with the seasons and making use of the best of what’s fresh. Head to the Rising Sun’s website to view the current menu and book your table to be delighted by Joe’s delicious dishes for yourself! And in the meantime, it’s over to Joe himself to tell you a little more…
Hiya, Joe! What’s your name and where do you come from?
I’m Joe Grayson, and I’m from Sheffield.
What’s your favourite beer and why?
It’s got to be Daily Bread – I’m not a big fan of light beers, so prefer a bitter. If I can’t find Daily Bread, I enjoy an Acorn’s Barnsley Bitter.
And you’re the chef who’s newly in charge of the kitchen at our pub, the Rising Sun – so moving away from beer a little, what about your favourite cuisine?
It’s not what a lot of chefs would say but I’m going to go for British – there’s a wealth of great ingredients and the seasonality is so diverse. Game season is my favourite time of year.
What’s your favourite dish on the menu?
At the moment I’d say the fish and chips, we get the fish couriered up the day it lands from St. Ives so it’s super fresh. It’s such a classic dish that deserves more than the generic treatment a lot of places give it! We use our very own Heresy lager in the batter, too.
Best place to enjoy a pint?
Brother’s Arms, my local up in Heeley. Snug in the winter, great beer garden in the summer.
Favourite snack to enjoy alongside a beer?
I like a pickled egg, so should everyone else.
When you’re not creating delicious dishes, what do you like to do in your spare time?
Hill walking and generally enjoying the Derbyshire countryside.
And finally… If you were a cartoon character, who would it be?
Sheffield Beer Week is a city wide celebration of independent beer, and everything that makes this industry in Sheffield so special. Having first taken place in 2015, this year Sheffield Beer Week falls from Monday 9th to Sunday 15th March, and shines a spotlight on not just our beer scene but the connection that has to the food, music, community and heritage of our city. So we thought we’d put together a few beer, food and music pairings to get the full sensory experience!
To kick things off, we’d love to introduce you to our Sheffield Beer Week collaboration beer, Synth City! This year, one of the key messages of SBW is focused around celebrating the sonic and synth musical heritage of our hometown, as diverse and unique as our beer scene, and our latest pale ale is inspired by that vivacity. Featuring Krush, Vic Secret and Mosaic hops, it’s hop-forward with flavours that oscillate between notes of pulpy tropical and juicy citrus fruits, which harmonise beautifully with a lightly herbaceous finish. It launched at Indie Beer Feast over the weekend and it’s available NOW in cask, keg and can, including on tap at Hop Hideout, where Sheffield Beer Week organiser Jules can also be found! So who better to suggest a snack and song pairing for this one than Jules herself?! Here are her picks:
“For a song I’d go for Heaven 17 ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’. With founding members of Heaven 17 coming from a strong Trade Unionist family background in Sheffield, it was a response and warning to what was going on around them at the time. I feel it’s a song as pertinent in meaning when written in 1981 as today. And I’d pair this beer with a packet of Brown Bag Crisps’ Oak Smoked Chilli flavour. They’re small batch cooked, independently family-owned, gluten free crisps. The punch of the Scotch Bonnet chillies and natural smoke hit match the beer’s intensity without overpowering its juicy and intense tropical notes.” Make sure you pop to Hop Hideout in Leah’s Yard to try this combination for yourself!
Next up, we’re thrilled to welcome back an Abbeydale classic – in celebration of our 30th anniversary, we’ve brought back Vespers for the first time since 2015! A 4.2% English Porter, back from the archives with reimagined artwork as part of our Legacy Series. Full of rich roast coffee and dark fruit notes, it works fantastically as a partner to a cheeseboard. And for a song, we’re choosing something else a little dark and brooding – pop Being Boiled by the Human League on the stereo and tuck in to some creamy blue cheese or a nutty aged Gouda, which contrast deliciously with the malt forward sweetness in Vespers.
This week also sees the launch of our new head chef’s superb new menu at our pub, The Rising Sun – look out for more on that later this week! We’ve paired the lemon and white chocolate cheesecake with a pint of It’s Always Sunny in Shireoaks – a beer we made with the fab Ticking Clock Brew Co just over the border in (yep, you guessed it!) Shireoaks. This Dolcita hopped pale is full of notes of tropical pineapple and juicy peach, with a luscious creamy finish, which compliments a sweet treat very nicely indeed. And moving away from synth but staying with the local theme, who could resist pairing a beer brewed using a hop whose name means “little sweetie” without turning up the volume to a bit of Def Leppard – Pour Some Sugar On Me?!
For our final suggested pairing, we’re going for Moonshine – preferably a pint of it. The archetypal Sheffield beer, best enjoyed in a local pub, paired with good company. Yeah, we know that’s kinda cheating. We’re going to recommend you stick Common People on, get a bag of ready salted on the go and don’t think about it too much – just enjoy.
Introducing Abbeydale Beerworks – the Abbeydale Brewery Taproom. Coming soon!
Yes, that’s right… after 30 years, we’ve finally found a perfect space for a taproom, just around the corner from the brewery. We’re excited to announce that we will be taking on the lease of the unit which was previously the fantastic Turner’s Bottle Shop, 298 Abbeydale Road. Our hope is for it to be a destination for beer lovers to find our latest brews and small batch specials, as well as a venue for hosting exclusive tasting events. And it’s just 200 steps away from the brewery roller shutters!
Our new space will be called Abbeydale Beerworks, and just like the brewery and our pub the Rising Sun, it’ll be 100% employee owned. We’re optimistically working towards an opening date in the spring, hopefully mid April, but we aren’t able to confirm this right now – be assured we’ll keep you posted every step of the way!
We really hope we can take the venue forwards with the spirit of community that Rob and Alison so wonderfully instilled in Turner’s, and we can’t wait to play a new part in the neighbourhood that already means so much to us and that we’ve called home for thirty years.
Our onsite shop at the brewery itself is unaffected and will remain open Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, although once Beerworks is open you’ll also be able to get cans and other goodies from there outside of these hours too – opening hours for the taproom will be confirmed closer to the launch.
We’re all incredibly excited about this news, and we can’t wait to welcome you to Abbeydale Beerworks. In the meantime, you can follow our new venue on Facebook and Instagram where we’ll be sharing more of our journey.
Cheers!
PS – if you’re reading this thinking “I’d love to be a part of this!” – we’re on the lookout for an experienced hospitality professional to become our taproom manager. Find out all the details here.
The New Zealand hopped star of our core range has now been part of the history of Abbeydale Brewery for EIGHTEEN YEARS! Happy birthday, Deception!
Packed full of tasty New Zealand hops, bursting with an elderflower aroma and flavours of gooseberry and juicy white grape. Twice Champion Beer of Sheffield, and a firm favourite amongst both staff and customers, we really wanted to celebrate this much-loved brew becoming old enough to buy itself a pint… and fittingly, this occasion falls right at the start of our thirtieth anniversary year too! And so we’ve brought back one of our most requested specials, a beer that pays great homage to our Nelson Sauvin hopped pale and yet simultaneously brings a new twist to it too – it’s CRYO DECEPTION!
Using the same gorgeous hop, just in myriad different ways, Cryo Deception includes Nelson Sauvin in leaf, T90 and Cryo form, added throughout the brewing process. A slightly higher ABV than “regular” Deception at 4.8% helps all those delectable aromas come to the fore with an extra oomph of flavour. Light, luscious and very refreshing.
The story of Deception starts back in 2008, when we were trialling some new hops in a series of specials. Friend of the brewery Stuart Noble wouldn’t stop talking about a new hop from New Zealand, Nelson Sauvin, a hop that supposedly brought with it flavours of Sauvignon Blanc, and so we thought we’d give it a go. Our hop suppliers, Charles Faram, also knew how much our brewery owner Pat loved experimenting with new varieties and so were happy to help us get our gauntlet gloves on some. We brewed one full brew length of it, sold out of it within weeks and promptly had to brew it again!
We then had so many requests for it we brewed it every year. (As a slight aside, the following year, word on the street was a hop called Citra and we used that in Duck Baffler – another perennial beer, also available now as a cask special!) Deception remained an annual release until 2013 when we were finally able to pin down a regular supply of Nelson Sauvin and fulfil the demand all year round! Deception is now one of the longest standing beers in the UK to make use of Nelson Sauvin, and is right at the heart of our range, second only to Moonshine in terms of the volumes we produce.
Deception was formative in the beer journeys of many of Team Abbeydale and holds plenty of fond memories for us all. It was the very first beer our brewer Christie both bought for himself, and served a pint of as a bartender at the Kelham Island Tavern, and many of you may know both our Export Manager Robin, and our Retail Manager Lucienne from their days slinging a LOT of pints from behind the bar at Shakespeare’s – still one of our biggest customers .
To help us celebrate this milestone, here’s a list of some of the venues joining us to showcase Nelson Sauvin at its fruity, fantastic finest! At all of these below you’ll find either Deception and/or Cryo Deception from the week of Monday 19th January:
Rising Sun, Fulwood… who are also hosting Deception’s birthday party! Drop in between 5-7pm on Wednesday 21st December for a FREE tasting with our brewer Christie! Donations to our charity of the year, Ben’s Centre, would be much appreciated.
Wonky Labrador, Hangingwater
Shakespeare’s, Kelham Island
Harlequin, Kelham Island
Cremorne, Sheffield
Bath Hotel, Sheffield City Centre
Lord Nelson, Sheffield City Centre
Hop Hideout, Sheffield City Centre
Itchy Pig, Banner Cross
Banner Cross, Banner Cross
Dark Horse, Banner Cross
Crown and Cushion, Burncross
Brothers Arms, Heeley
Broomhill Tavern, Broomhill
The Local, Ecclesall Road
Devonshire Arms, Dore
Commercial, Chapeltown
Three Stags Heads, Wardlow Mires
Beer Parlour, Chesterfield
Jack Hawley at the Grange, Doncaster
Old Hall Inn, Chinley
Rambler Inn, Edale
Clarkes Sibin, Chorley
Jacobs Beer House, Bradford
Crafty Fox, Brighouse
Victoria Inn, Rugby
Draughtsman, Doncaster Train Station
Whaley Nook, Whaley Bridge
Nook & Cranny, Harwood
Dandy Cock, Kirkby in Ashfield
White Lion, Barrow-in-Furness
And cans of Cryo Deception will be available from Wednesday 21st January (Deception’s actual birthday) from the following retailers:
Beer Central, Sheffield City Centre
Starmore Boss, Sharrow Vale
Premier Valley Road, Sheffield
Dunston Hall Food and Deli
Trembling Madness, York
Penistone Beer Shop
… with more to follow! And of course you will be able to find it at our online and onsite shops too.
Introducing Reverence! A pale ale weighing in at just 0.5% ABV. Low in alcohol, but full of flavour, without sacrifice. Designed to sit comfortably within our already expansive range, further improving the extent of our creations and demonstrating our commitment to making our products as accessible as we can.
Reverence is packed full of Mosaic hops (including being dry hopped using innovative hop extract Hyperboost), inspired by our popular American Pale Ale, Heathen, which has been the flagship of our Brewers’ Emporium range since 2016. But a baby Heathen this brew is not intended to be! We believe it’s a beer that holds its own alongside the rest of our range – the ultimate session beer, crisp and crushable with an aromatic and punchy hop character. Expect refreshing tropical flavours and notes of zesty grapefruit, with a delicate bitterness in the finish to round out the profile beautifully. Juicy, easy-drinking, delicious. Like all our beers, it’s gluten free.
As demand for low-and-no alcohol products has grown over the past few years, we knew that this was a gap in our offering. And for a long time, we were ok with that – we weren’t sure that a low alcohol beer was quite in our wheelhouse (some of you may remember we explained the reasons for this back when we launched our Sparkling Hop Water in 2023). But after years of hard work, careful and extensive research, and meticulous lab analysis, coupled with an array of technological advancements in the wider field, we’ve changed our minds! We can honestly say we’re incredibly proud of the results. Something that looks like beer, tastes like beer, is brewed like any other beer… and simply is a proper beer, for beer lovers, but with just a tiny fraction of the booze.
For those of you who like a bit of technical spiel, here’s the method behind our Reverence. We produce a wort in exactly the same way as for our other beers – our base malt Maris Otter barley is the main ingredient, just the same as the rest of our range, with a little Caramalt and Carapils for a hint of biscuit character, and oats for a more luscious body. The differences are that we mash in at a higher temperature and using much less grain, which results in more complex sugars being produced. Regular ale yeast eats up sugar (especially maltose, the primary sugar found in most worts) and breaks it down into alcohol and CO2. We use a different yeast strain for this beer – Lallemand LoNa, which doesn’t like or eat maltose. We still get a little bit of fermentation from very simple sugars, which is important as whilst this doesn’t produce much at all in the way of alcohol, it does produce natural acids, reduces worty aldehydes from the grain and lots of other clever things that means we end up with something that tastes more like beer than Ovaltine. Hooray!
The name itself pays homage to the care and attention we take in the development of each and every one of our brews, and the high regard in which we hold them. We hope – and believe – that shines through in Reverence.
Cheers!
Team Abbeydale
Reverence is available now in 440ml cans, including from our online shop.
To herald not just the new year, but the start of our 30TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR(!!), we’ve created our own take on a style we’ve never before brewed… an 80 Shilling Ale!
If you’re wondering what on earth an 80 Shilling Ale is, it’s a traditional, malt-forward and full-bodied beer. Ours is delicately constructed with our base Maris Otter barley and UK grown Goldings hops, before being coloured with caramel, as is tradition. The resulting beer is rich and smooth with a light copper hue and flavours of toffee and dried fruits. Simple yet satisfying and extremely well balanced, with a gentle bitterness in the finish. Our version is loosely inspired by a recipe dating from 1957, also the year the space race began and the frisbee won the accolade of most popular toy.
Sitting in our Restoration series, paying homage to the most classic of beer styles, the artwork takes inspiration from the Scottish heritage behind this brew, with Edinburgh Castle hand drawn by our fabulous designer James. The background image shows an etching by Scottish artist Walter Geikie of the Grassmarket in Edinburgh at the foot of the castle.
And of course, we couldn’t talk about Scottish beer and January without giving a shout out to Burns Night! We reckon this could just be the perfect accompaniment to your haggis, neeps and tatties (with a wee dram to follow of course) – in fact, it’s a beer that’s mellow enough to complement all manner of wintery dishes, from a rich beefy stew to a classic cheeseboard. The Rising Sun have a special Burns Night menu for one night only on Monday January 26th too – booking essential, head here to view the menu and reserve your table!
80 Shilling Ale is available now in cask and can, including from our online shop. In the words of The Bard himself – “O gude ale comes and gude ale goes”… this one won’t be around for long, so don’t miss out!
2025 – our first full year of being employee owned! Our team genuinely feels stronger than ever, and we believe that’s reflected in the beers we’ve released over the last 12 months. We’ve achieved close to 5% growth from last year, which is almost double our own hopes and expectations… and all against a general climate which is still making things incredibly difficult for our industry as a whole. We’re truly humbled to have somewhat bucked the trend here, and so grateful for the support of our customers to be able to do so – it really is something we would never take for granted.
Our first year as an EOT was recognised twice over! We won the amazing accolade of Employer of the Year at the SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers) Business Awards , followed up by our founder Pat coming away with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brewers Choice Awards. And we were the only brewery to make the finals of the BBC Food & Farming Awards, being named on the shortlist for Best Drinks Producer! All key highlights of 2025 for us.
There were more awards for our beers, too! Voyager cans scooped a Silver and cask Deception won a Bronze medal in the SIBA NE Indie Beer Awards, our thirst-quenching Nelson Sauvin Sparkling Hop Water was awarded a Silver at the World Alcohol Free Awards, and our Black IPA, Black Mass, was named Speciality IPA Category Champion at the SIBA North East Indie Beer Awards as well as taking away the Silver medal in the Champion Beer of Sheffield competition.
During the course of 2025, we brewed a total of 328 times, creating 96 individual beers (and two Sparkling Hop Waters!), adding up to almost 3 MILLION pints… over a million of which were our beloved Moonshine! Our first brew of the year was Moonshine, and the last beer of the year, which we’re making as I share this, is Heathen, beautifully bookending 2025 with the flagship brews from our two key ranges. And we strengthened our commitment to making our beer as accessible as we can to those who want to drink it, with our entire range becoming gluten free.
Cask beer remains the beating heart and soul of our business, with over three quarters of our output going to wonderful pubs nationwide and beyond!. But it’s not all we can do (totally intentional pun), with us filling over 250,000 cans too!
We had success internationally, almost doubling our export volumes when compared to 2024. We sent our beer to Ireland and Germany for the first time (including a collaboration brew and two tap takeovers in the Rhineland!), plus securing new distributors in Finland and Sweden. And the furthest apart you’d be able to find yourself an Abbeydale beer over the course of the year was around 1250 miles – from Dublin to Helsinki!
Our charity of the year was the wonderful local cause Ben’s Centre – we raised £790 which will go towards supporting vulnerable people in our community. And we gained a celebrity fan in the form of Sheffield legend Sean Bean, who sampled our beers whilst we celebrated Weston Park Museum’s 150th birthday together.
So after all that… what does 2026 have in store for Team Abbeydale? Well, it’s our 30th anniversary year! Our actual birthday isn’t until August, but we’re not limiting the celebrations to a single day and have a PLETHORA of exciting plans in the pipeline that we can’t wait to share with you! We hope you’ve already seen our limited edition bottles of Henderson’s Relish (the last of which are available exclusively in our on site shop, now open 5 days a week!). Stay tuned for some very special beer releases… starting with some Very Big News that we hope is going to tickle the fancy of those of you about to embark on Dry January!
Wishing you all a very happy new year, and a bountiful 2026.
The Rising Sun (winner of the 2022 Sheffield & District CAMRA Pub of the Year award, and Pub of the Year for Sheffield West in 2023 and 2025) is a welcoming community pub based in the leafy Sheffield suburb of Fulwood. The pub has a long and rich history, of which Abbeydale Brewery’s ownership is the latest chapter – and today, 19th December 2025, marks twenty years since we took the helm! So we thought it was a good time to share with you a few nuggets of info about the past of our gorgeous pub, while we look forward to the future.
A pub has been situated in the Rising Sun’s location since the 19th century – it first appeared in the 1859 General Directory of Sheffield. The name was chosen for pubs facing east and receiving the early-morning sun, as the original building did. The current building opened when the owners, the Sheffield Town Trustees, agreed to provide land for the widening of Fulwood Road to Sheffield Corporation, in return for the demolition and reconstruction of the original pub – which the widened road (to fit electric tram lines in the early twentieth century) was built right through the middle of! Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see a photo of the original building, with a much more familiar looking Rising Sun in the process of being built almost at a right angle to it!
The existing building opened in July 1904, operated by the Sheffield Public House Trust Company and with J. Rowbotham as the first manager. A newspaper report from 1907 stated that “at the Rising Sun, the demand for teas, Bovril, meat sandwiches, and bread and cheese has been exceedingly great” (we like to think our menu offering has become somewhat elevated since then!)
The pub has always been at the heart of its community, hosting events such as the Nethergreen floral and vegetable show just after the turn of the twentieth century, where no less than FIFTEEN prizes were given out for differing types of award-winning kidney bean.
Mid-century, the license was taken over by the Courage group – and fun fact: according to long time regulars of the pub, until the 1950s, the car park behind the pub was a bowling green, with a wooden verandah spanning the back of the pub to make sure spectators had a good view. Interestingly, we couldn’t find any evidence or photographs of this, but we think it might still be hidden under the tarmac!
The pub had a famous landlord in the 1980s, when Graham Pugh, football player for Sheffield Wednesday in the 1966 FA Cup Final, took over the pub with his wife Susan. And then in July 1992, the University of Sheffield Students’ Union took over the pub, who were in charge right up until…
Abbeydale Brewery took ownership, just in time for Christmas 2005! We officially took over the pub on the 19th December, and reopened on Christmas Eve – some might say we don’t do things the easy way! In the days between taking the pub and reopening there was lots to do, mainly cleaning, painting, installing new cellar kit and restocking everything from beer (of course), wine and spirits to glasses and the all-important crisps and snacks. One of these wintery mornings, whilst sitting outside enjoying a well-earned cup of coffee, our brewery founders Pat and Sue Morton noted the sheer number of dog walkers passing by. There and then, the Rising Sun became dog friendly, and remains so to this day.
Pat’s brother, Chris, was the first Abbeydale landlord. He did not take to it as a long-term prospect and was replaced by Dave and Karen Beaumont. After leaving the pub, Dave continued to work for us as a delivery driver at the brewery, until he retired in 2020. And our long-standing regulars will likely also remember Rob and Julie, who managed the pub for many years including overseeing the original Sunfest! The idea of Sunfest came about one bank holiday weekend when Rob was chatting to Pat, and suggested a beer festival to help to put the pub on the map. “Absolutely!” said Pat. “How many beers could we do?” asked Rob – “At least 100” was the reply. “I was thinking 6!” said Rob. Pat, of course, got his way, and the festival was a real highlight of Sheffield’s beer calendar for many years.
An extensive refurbishment took place in 2014, creating the welcoming and spacious venue we have today. The extension was designed by David Uhlar of Robin Ashley Architects. Much of the interior design was done by David, ably assisted by Dawn Milton, the business’ Finance Manager, and Nicole Tissington, then manager of the pub along with her husband Ryan. Dawn and Nicole did a fantastic job sourcing many of the furnishings, ornaments and pictures which still adorn the pub today.
Since 2018, we’ve had Absolution’s number one fan Garry at the helm, who continues to strengthen the Rising Sun’s links with local people whilst showcasing what we at Abbeydale Brewery do best! And as of 2024, Garry and the pub staff became employee owners of the business, as part of Sheffield Beerworks – our Employee Ownership Trust. The Rising Sun is one of very few pubs in the country to operate under this model and it’s a real confirmation of our values, our ethos, and our independence.
We’re incredibly proud of our pub and the team there and it’s a privilege to be a part of such a long-standing community venue’s legacy. With the brewery celebrating its 30th anniversary next year – and with 20 years of the Rising Sun as a really important part of our history – we’ve got some exciting plans underway which are still under wraps for now… but watch this space closely, all will be revealed soon!
Please do pop in for a pint or two and to sample their fantastic menu! You can read more about the pub, as well as find out how to book a table, on their website here.
Cheers!
Team Abbeydale
*As well as our own research, we’d like to extend thanks to Dave Pickersgill for contributing towards the historical background in this piece. If you enjoyed learning about the Rising Sun of yore, you can find much more about Sheffield’s pubs of historical interest in Dave’s book, Sheffield’s Real Heritage Pubs, which you can download here.
A true Sheffield institution founded in 1996 and employee owned since 2024, Abbeydale Brewery blends heritage and tradition with creativity and innovation, showcasing these values across an unparalleled range of beers.
